College as a Marriage Market

Lars Kirkebøen, Edwin Leuven and Magne Mogstad

No 28688, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: What explains the strong educational homogamy and assortativity that we observe among the college educated? We use Norwegian data to address identification and measurement challenges and find that colleges are local marriage markets that matter greatly for whom one marries, not because of the pre-determined traits of the admitted students but as a direct result of attending a particular institution at a given time. The effects of enrollment on homogamy that we uncover are sufficiently large to explain the majority of the strong educational sorting among the college educated in our data. We also examine the mechanisms behind these effects and explore implications for individual and family earnings.

JEL-codes: D13 I23 I24 J12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-04
Note: ED LS
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

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Working Paper: College as a Marriage Market (2021)
Working Paper: College as a Marriage Market (2021)
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